A drive recorder is a device for reviewing an accident that has occurred to a vehicle and come into widespread use for business and consumer purposes. The drive recorder has one or a plurality of cameras connected therewith and a built-in sensor for detecting an impact. The drive recorder detects an impact occurring to a vehicle when the vehicle collides with another vehicle by use of a sensor and stores a video image recorded at the time of the collision (For example, see Publication of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application JP-A-2007-4378). A user can set the configuration values of the drive recorder, such as the number of installed cameras and the threshold value of the impact detected by the sensor at which the recording is started.
A method for changing the configuration values of a conventional drive recorder will be described. FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a procedure for setting the configuration values in a conventional drive recorder and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the drive recorder. First, in step S101, configuration data including various configuration values of the drive recorder is set in an external computer, etc., that is not connected to the drive recorder body. Next, in step S102, the set configuration data is stored in a memory card, etc. Next, in step S103, memory card 2 that stores the configuration data set on the computer is inserted into a memory card slot 3 of drive recorder 1 (hereinafter referred to as the “vehicle-mounted device”) mounted on a vehicle as illustrated in FIG. 2 to write the configuration data to a memory 4 such as FROM® in the vehicle-mounted device. By performing this procedure, for example, when there is a plurality of vehicles, the configuration data can be managed in an integrated fashion on the computer.
For example, when there are a plurality of vehicles, the procedure for writing identical configuration data A to vehicle-mounted devices 101, 102 and 103 that are drive recorders mounted on the respective vehicles will be described using FIG. 3. First, in step S301, configuration data A commonly used in vehicle-mounted devices 101 to 103 is set in a computer provided outside the vehicle-mounted devices. Next, in step S302, configuration data A is stored in a memory card. Next, in step S303, the memory card is inserted into vehicle-mounted device 101 and configuration data A is written to a memory. Similarly, in step S304, configuration data A is written to a memory of vehicle-mounted device 102, and in step S305, configuration data A is written to a memory of vehicle-mounted device 103. In this way, configuration data A that is commonly used in vehicle-mounted devices 101 to 103 mounted on the plurality of vehicles can be modified or changed on the computer at once, so as to simplify the operation for setting the configuration data commonly used in the plurality of vehicle-mounted devices.
On the other hand, in addition to the above-described method in which the configuration data changed on the computer provided outside the vehicle-mounted device is written to the vehicle-mounted device, there is also known another method in which the configuration data is changed on the vehicle-mounted device side. FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a vehicle-mounted device equipped with a terminal. Vehicle-mounted device 1 is connected to a terminal 5. Terminal 5 comprises a display section 7 and a keypad 6, such as a 10-key numeric pad for inputting data. Further, vehicle-mounted device 1 has a built-in memory 4 such as FROM® that can store the configuration data of the vehicle-mounted device. The configuration data of vehicle-mounted device 1 is changed by displaying the configuration data stored in memory 4 to the display section 7 and manipulating keypad 6. In this way, the user can change the configuration data of the vehicle-mounted devices individually.
However, in the above method in which each of the vehicle-mounted devices on the vehicles read the configuration data set on the computer using the memory card, there are following problems.
First, when the computer is installed remotely from the vehicles, it is inefficient to have to go back and forth between the vehicles and the place where the computer is installed every time the configuration is changed.
Further, because the configuration data can be changed on each vehicle not via the computer, the difference between the configuration values set in the master table on the computer and the configuration values set in the vehicle-mounted device cannot be recognized.
On the other hand, in the method in which the configuration data is changed using the terminal connected to the vehicle-mounted device, the configuration data is not managed by any external device such as the computer, and therefore it is inefficient to have to change the configuration data similarly in the individual vehicle-mounted devices mounted on vehicles having the same vehicle type and using identical configuration data.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for efficiently changing configuration data of a vehicle-mounted device mounted on a vehicle.